‘We want to provide the best experience’: Cities: Skylines 2 delayed for consoles

Cities: Skylines 2, the long-awaited sequel to Colossal Order’s stellar city builder, has been delayed on consoles, according to the game’s official Twitter account. The game was set to launch on Oct. 24 this year but got pushed back into the spring of 2024. The developers behind Cities: Skylines 2 announced that they want to ensure the best product quality on consoles and have thus decided to update the game’s console release window.

“Mayors! We’re hard at work getting the game ready for release. We’ve come to realize that we need more time to reach the quality targets we’ve set for Console. We want to provide the best experience for our players, we’re updating the release window for Xbox & PS5 to Spring 2024.”

This change affects only the Xbox and PS5 releases of Cities: Skylines 2, with the PC version staying on course. Players on the Paradox Plaza, the official forum of Cities: Skylines 2 publisher Paradox Interactive, have expressed their disappointment with the announcement. “I’m sorry but I knew that this would happen,” one user solemnly noted.

Another criticized Colossal Order’s decision to show significant parts of the game through YouTube sponsorships and developer diaries and then leave console players hungry for more: “Hugely disappointing doesn’t even come close, effectively spoiling the game for the entire console player base as they will be able to see everything that game has to offer when it hits the PC on release day.”

When Cities: Skylines initially launched in 2015, it quickly became one of the best city-building simulation games. It filled the gap created by the unimpressive SimCity reboot, eventually leading to Maxis’s closure.

Cities: Skylines 2 builds on its predecessor’s success and is highly anticipated among city-building enthusiasts. It promises to expand on the many gameplay mechanics and systems established by the original game. Based on what the development diaries have shown over the past year, it seems that this is Colossal Order’s biggest undertaking, making the console delay somewhat understandable.

Cities: Skylines 2 is coming to PC on Oct. 24, 2023. Console players will need to hold tight for a while longer.